(Parental Discretion Advised)

Friday, February 25, 2011

I have been IN LOVE with the beautiful blinged out flower cards on Jacque's Joie de Vivre and All the things I love ever since I saw their blogs for the first time! They are the reason I became obsessed with making flowers. Recently a friend on SCS sent me some ready made flowers and bling, so I could make my version of these cards. Of course, mine aren't as fabulous and layered, I just can't quite get them as embellished, lol. I still think mine are fabulous tho.

I started with some TAC girls stamps and colored them with my copic and bic markers. I am slowly getting better at coloring! I even textured the background cardstock with my embossing folders!

This card is my fave stamp, the dancing girl.

I thought this little girl was adorable.

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Of course I used my fave silver metallic chipboard. I think I was picturing it wider in my head, but I still like how it came out.

To make these cards, I spend several days imagining and decided what to do- even before I start stamping. I just am not able to sit down and make one. It takes a lot of thinking.

Monday, February 21, 2011

I received a wonderful package of flowers from a friend on SCS. I was showing them my sister-in-law Julie, and she put together this amazing combo of a large daisy, small crocheted flower and a sparkly teal brad. Naturally, I had to steal it and use it on a card!

When Jodi, who was over hanging in the bead room, saw it, she said it matched her sister's wedding colors. So I handed her some of the supplies and she built a similar flower. I made it into a wedding card for Jodi to give to her sister.

I had a pattern for a crocheted cupcake purse saved, and decided to give it a go. Of course, I changed quite a bit of the pattern- I hate doing row after row of single crochet. It has a plastic canvas support inside. Isn't this too cute for a little girl?

I do wish I could see well enough to do the crochet flowers- I just can't see the stitches with the thread and tiny hooks!!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I was between projects a few days ago and came upon a list of guys the niblings wanted me to make them. I have a large number of these lists floating around, because the kids love to go thru my crochet books whenever they are hanging out in my room and tell me what they want me to make. Mostly I do so for birthdays and such, but as I said, I was between projects... so here are my creations, all from the same book.

Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More!

by Christen Haden

Here is the monkey and a pink devil. Yes, the original devil is NOT pink, but I had a request for devils in every color.

Aren't their tails cute?

Fighting men! A Spartan and a Ninja. Notice the great throwing star tucked in the Ninja's sash.

Sweet cape, hey? The sword is from the pirate sizzix Dress Ups die.

I can't pronounce or remember this dude's name, so I just call him Chimichanga.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Here is my card. I used the Summer Garden paper to make the flowers and for the background. I used a MS edge punch for the border. The stamp is also Imaginisce. I didn't realize until today that the stamps don't really work so well with Stampin' Up ink... so I ended up finding a pigment ink in blue, that actually somehow matched. I also sprayed gold shimmer spray on the flowers.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Before Christmas I bought some silicone candy molds, along with cream fillings, from Kitchen Krafts. I was fairly ill and never got around to making any candy tho, until last friday. I LOVE the silicone molds! They are a thousand times better than the plastic candy molds. And dishwasher safe!

Here are some of the candies I made. The white is actually raspberry, the orange is orange, and the chocolate is the big block of Ghirardelli from Sam's Club. My parents are out of town so I will be looking for other chocolate this weekend. (The fillings have to be used up within four weeks once opened.) One of the molds makes squares and the other does hearts.

Once I made the candies, I wanted to figure out how to box them up nicely. I thought I had several Bigz XL dies for boxes, but I only had one, for the shaker box. It is too short for the candy.

Then I remembered that I had several Coluzzle templates that made boxes. I tried some out this morning and thought the Take-Out box was the best fit for a few candies.

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I stamped the outside with a paisley stamp and also sprayed glimmer mist on it. I didn't do handles because... I didn't feel like it. :)

I still wanted to mail fancy cards for the upcoming birthdays, so I made them with accordion fold flowers cuz I thought they were sturdier. Then I remembered I had a bunch of clear acetate boxes that I had purchased to hold sets of cards. The boxes are perfect for one fancy 3-d card. I plan on mailing them in a bubble envelope, and think the box will protect them.
Here is Karen's card, in the box.﻿

Here it is out of the box. I used America's colors since she lives in England. The sheer ribbon is from Oriental Trading.

This is Suzie's card. I picked the color scheme because of the 12 inch long scraps Jodi left lest time she came over scrapping. HA! I like using up scraps. I also used some Baker's twine!

Monday, February 7, 2011

As you may remember, I am working on making my cards more lush. I thought 3-d flowers was a way to achieve that, and posted on SplitCoast for ideas on flowers to make, as opposed to purchase, as I am usually broke. I got some great tips and links, and these cards are the result.
Sadly, I set out today to make cards I could SEND out for two upcoming birthdays. Any of these cards would need to be mailed in boxes. I wonder if the Postal Worker would believe me if I posted a box to England and filled out the customs form with "a card"? HA!

Here is the first card. I used accordian folds to make these cute flowers. I had a bit of trouble, for some reason I didn't find scoring every 1/4 inch very even on my Scor-Pal. Perhaps I should not have done every half inch then flipped it over for the in-between scors? I will have to check the scor-pal site for tips. Still they came out pretty cute I thought.

This card has more dimentional flowers. They are ten-twelve layers thick! The double sided paper works much better than single sided/white back paper.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

I was SUPER excited when I saw the spinner hands in the SU! Occasions catalog. When Salabration came along, I had to order them. Originally, I didn't plan on getting the matching stamp set, but I was kinda ill when I placed my order and purchased it. I am a bit disappointed with it tho- there are four stamps, and only two are usable with the spinner hands. One is the birthday stamp shown below, and one is a "good job" type stamp. The other two have more than one occasion in the spinner spots- so if you used one on a wedding card, say, they could spin it and it would say "Happy Baby!" or something inappropriate. I want the spinners to SPIN, dang it, that is the point, so I can't see ever using the multiple occasion stamps. Out of the four in the set, 1 I will use, 1 I might and 2 I won't. Should not have spend the money, right?

Here is the birthday card. I put the washer on the brad FIRST, then the spinner, and when I folded the legs of the brad down, I added a piece of chipboard to the back of the stamped image so the legs aren't too tight. That way the spinner spins freely, and zooms around and around. I do love the spinner! (Remove the chipboard after bending the legs!)

Here is a thank you card that I made up the spinner board. I found a blank divided circle online, and printed off some on cardstock. I stamped things relating to saying thanks in each slice. I didn't have as many as I thought I would, lol. Some are a bit... different for a thank you card! I am going to make some spinner boards that have less slices, so I can fit bigger stamps in them.